ps(1) gains support for tree-like display of processes

Contributed by rueda on 2022-09-02 from the forest-hugger dept.

Following a discussion on tech@, Job Snijders (job@), committed to ps(1) support for displaying the parent/child hierarchy of processes as an ASCII art tree:

CVSROOT:	/cvs
Module name:	src
Changes by:	job@cvs.openbsd.org	2022/09/01 15:15:54

Modified files:
	bin/ps         : extern.h print.c ps.1 ps.c ps.h 

Log message:
Add forest (-f) mode

In -f mode group & display parent/child process relationships using ASCII art.

Borrows heavily from Brian Somers' work on FreeBSD ps(1).

With input from deraadt@ and tb@

OK benno@ claudio@

The "-f" option letter is after GNU ps.

The first post in the tech@ thread gives an example of the appearance:

    $ ps ad -O ppid,user
      PID  PPID USER     TT  STAT        TIME COMMAND
    18180 12529 job      pb  I+p      0:00.01 `-- -sh (sh)
    26689 56460 job      p3  Ip       0:00.01   `-- -ksh (ksh)
     5153 26689 job      p3  I+p      0:40.18     `-- mutt
    62046 25272 job      p4  Sp       0:00.25   `-- -ksh (ksh)
    61156 62046 job      p4  R+/0     0:00.00     `-- ps -ad -O ppid
    26816  2565 job      p5  Ip       0:00.01   `-- -ksh (ksh)
    79431 26816 root     p5  Ip       0:00.16     `-- /bin/ksh
    43915 79431 _rpki-cl p5  S+pU     0:06.97       `-- rpki-client
    70511 43915 _rpki-cl p5  I+pU     0:01.26         |-- rpki-client: parser (rpki-client)
    96992 43915 _rpki-cl p5  I+pU     0:00.00         |-- rpki-client: rsync (rpki-client)
    49160 43915 _rpki-cl p5  S+p      0:01.52         |-- rpki-client: http (rpki-client)
    99329 43915 _rpki-cl p5  S+p      0:03.20         `-- rpki-client: rrdp (rpki-client)

This (great, convenience) feature was previously unavailable in the base system, but could be found in ports such as pstree(1).

(Comments are closed)

Comments

By d.c. (d.c.) on 2022-09-04 11:10

Sounds really promising! After 'cp -a' doing 'ps axf' is my second most often mistake, when I keep digressing from OpenBSD to GNU/Linux and back many times a day...

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